


Won't Do You No Good, Washing In The River

by ThoughtfulBreadPolice



Series: My Boy Builds Coffins [1]
Category: Avengers Assemble (Cartoon), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, But just a little, Civil War doesn't happen, Death, Does this qualify as a canon divergence?, Doubt, Everyone Needs A Hug, Feelings, Gen, Love, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Natasha Romanov Needs a Hug, Natasha loves her family, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Not Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, SHIELD, Some elements of TWS, Team as Family, The Avengers Love Each Other, The Avengers are a little bit darker, Tony Stark Has A Heart, because I said so, conflicting obligations, mildly graphic death, screw the timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:41:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27086494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThoughtfulBreadPolice/pseuds/ThoughtfulBreadPolice
Summary: Natasha is loyal to SHIELD no matter how much she doubts.  Then the Avengers happen.
Series: My Boy Builds Coffins [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2103315
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	Won't Do You No Good, Washing In The River

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Politzania](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Politzania/gifts).



> Title: Won't Do You No Good, Washing In The River  
> https://archiveofourown.org/users/Politzania/pseuds/Politzania thank you.

Sometimes, in the darkest part of the night when she would lie awake waiting for the dawn to break, Natasha would feel the doubt creep in from the recesses of her mind. She had sworn her loyalty to SHIELD a long time ago, after thinking she was going to die and being spared instead.

A hand extended. A chance to save whatever was left of her shattered soul. A second chance, and Natasha had leapt at it. Because in truth, Nat had never actually wanted to die and for the most part she was  _ thankful  _ to SHIELD, and the Director for giving her the opportunity to wipe out some of the red in her ledger. But even still, doubt plagued her.

SHIELD was supposed to be good; they were supposed to be on the side of the light and yet...  _ and yet _ . Some of the missions they assigned her to \- they didn’t make sense. So the doubt, it was a constant thing that pressed at the edges of her mind.

Natasha knew that even though she and Clint had never spoken of it, she knew that he had his reservations too. A glance filled with understanding and doubt shining bright and clear in each of their eyes made it so that they never needed words. They’d always had been excellent at silent communication.

But both of them had sworn their loyalties to SHIELD a long time ago- Clint's loyalties had been given when he was sixteen and far, far too young. But it was what it was, and their efficiency secured their place in the higher echelons of SHIELD. 

Natasha knew that while they were trusted to some degree, they both knew that that trust only went so deep. Always there would be some shadow of mistrust in the Director’s eyes when he regarded them. There was just too much red in both of their ledgers to ever be any different.

Until the Avengers. Until Bruce and Steve and Thor and  _ Tony.  _ Tony who was the heart and soul of their team even though the man himself didn’t seem to think so.

Tony, who gave and gave and gave to them because he  _ understood.  _ He’d seen five lost and drowning souls and reached way down into the dark waters that was constantly trying to smother them all and  _ pulled _ them all up and out and away from those dark places.

He gave them a  _ home.  _ Gave them a safe place where no one could ever reach them. A bastion of peace, and they, the Avengers  _ loved  _ him for it.

Would always love him.

It hadn’t taken any of them long to discover that Tony was just as broken and warped, just as  _ lost  _ as they were. So they returned the favor and pulled him close to them, and sheltered him the y way he sheltered them.

They became family that way, and all of them knew that no matter what they did, or how far they wandered, Tony would always have  _ home  _ ready and waiting for them because Tony loved them too.

It made Natasha want to cry some days. The one thing she’d always wanted and never thought she’d get- it was overwhelming sometimes for her and Clint both.

Steve’s steady presence, Bruce’s endless understanding and patience- and his counterpart, the Hulk’s fierce and violent defense of those who accepted him green warts and all, and Thor’s endless optimism even when he himself sometimes felt as though he would crumble into dust.

Clint’s devotion and Tony’s love, it moved her. It made her love them all fiercely.

Love, Natasha thought sometimes, was its own form of madness.

The memory of the day the Wrecking Crew had managed to knock Clint down hard enough that he hadn’t gotten up again, and all of them  fearing that irreparable harm had been done and how the rest of the team had reacted proved it.

When Bulldozer, with the help of an amplifier they had somehow gotten from MODOK, had struck the building Clint was on, it hit with a concussive force so strong it had knocked him off, and for one long, agonizing moment, the world had slowed down as they watched Clint fall, hit the pavement, and get buried underneath the collapsing building.

In truth those sequence of events had happened in a matter of moments too fast and them too far away to help.

Only Wrecker, Dirk Garthwaite, had managed to escape them in the aftermath that her team had caused when Clint fell and didn’t get up again. 

Piledriver had been snatched up by Tony and dropped from such a great height that the impact when he hit the ground had made a crater and killed him instantly.

Thor and the Hulk had worked together to corral the fleeing Thunderball in the direction of Natasha who had then fired her Glock seventeen at point blank range, ending his life as well.

Steve beat Bulldozer to death.

All of them were lucky that there had been no news crews of cameras of any sort in vicinity. 

Madness.

None of them believed that what they’d done that day had been wrong. Clint had almost died, they’d all thought he  _ had  _ died, and none of them would ever regret avenging their fallen family member.

Nick Fury disagreed, and had begun to send Clint, Steve and herself on a string of solo missions that had worn them down to the point of  exhaustion .

It was only the knowledge that they had a home waiting for them that had kept them going until the Director felt that they’d learned whatever lesson it was he was trying to teach them.

All it did was create a wedge between the members of the Avengers and SHIELD that got bigger and bigger the longer the ‘punishment’ went on.

It was one of those missions that saw Steve and Natasha joining forces on a mission involving the vessel  Lemurian Star that led them to an increasingly complicated web of cover ups and lies that could have torn her family apart.

But instead when it was all over her and Steve had sat Tony down after he had helped funnel the info dump that she had let  lo o se and told him the truth.

Eventually after Tony had screamed and cried, he’d told Steve to find Bucky Barnes and bring him home.

So Steve did.

Bucky and the Winter Soldier, a man whom Nat had only ever known as Yasha- he accepted that name and could sometimes be seen wandering the tower looking for weak points in Jarvis’ system so that he could tell Tony and make it better- and wasn’t that an adjustment, two men in one body and each completely different from each other.

Neither Bucky  _ or  _ Yasha had thought that Steve had spoken any sort of truth in regards to Tony’s forgiveness. They hadn’t seemed to be able to believe that anyone, least of all Tony, could ever forgive them their trespasses.

But Tony  _ had.  _ He’d wrapped them in his arms and even though Tony was so much smaller than them, both men had felt like they were being held for the first time in memory.

_ I forgive you; I forgive you _ Tony had whispered to them, and Bucky had wept for the absolution given freely.

They’d both been welcome, and Bucky and Yasha had slotted into a place none of them had even known was empty. They were the team's quiet counterpart. A silent presence at their backs ready to surge forward and defend them with a ferocity that impressed even the Hulk.

The temporary fall of SHIELD had also brought them Sam. Sam who was just as brave and bold as the rest of them had a sort of gentleness to him that each member of their family had silently promised to protect for as long as they could.

Sam became their collective conscience, and they loved him just as fiercely has he grew to love each and every one of them.

Then one day, quite out of the blue, Nick Fury popped back up with a newly reformed SHIELD.

Natasha, Clint and Steve found themselves struggling to follow the old edicts that had been in place before its fall.

They no longer fit into the mold of SHIELD and it was becoming a problem.

It became an even bigger problem when Tony went missing and the Director tried to stop them from looking for him.

Steve had had to haul Thor out of the meeting room while Sam had stood in front of a now very much awake Yasha and convinced him that killing the Director would only slow them down.

Nat was the last one out and she knew that Nick Fury was going to become a very big problem for her family at some point, but Tony needed her and come hell or high water she was going to  _ find  _ him.


End file.
